I thank ye heartily; so shall this lady, Cran. Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse her, Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: 30 She shall be loved and fear'd: her own shall bless her; Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, In her days every man shall eat in safety, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, 59 An aged princess; many days shall see her, To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her. Thou hast made me now a man! never, before I thank ye all. To you, my good lord mayor, 70 Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank ye, She will be sick else. This day, no man think Has business at his house; for all shall stay: This little one shall make it holiday. [Exeunt. EPILOGUE. 'Tis ten to one this play can never please All that are here: some come to take their ease, And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear, When heaven shall call her from this cloud of We have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear, They'll say 'tis naught: others, to hear the city IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed, To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch 20 Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, Beginning in the middle, starting thence away Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are: Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war. 30 ACT I. SCENE I. Troy. Before Priam's palace. Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS. Tro. Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again: Why should I war without the walls of Troy, That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan that is master of his heart, Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none. Pan. Will this gear ne'er be mended? Tro. The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant; Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. Tro. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Tro. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening. Tro. Still have I tarried. 2 Pan. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. Tro. I was about to tell thee :-when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. 40 Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's-well, go to-there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but 50 Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;' Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice, Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me, As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; 60 But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. Let her be Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in't. as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. Tro. Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; illthought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? Pan. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. Tro. Say I she is not fair? 80 Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter. 100 When with your blood you daily paint her thus. Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts, 110 For womanish it is to be from thence. Tro. Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.' But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither? Come, go we then together. SCENE II. The same. A street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER. Cres. Who were those went by? Alex. Queen Hecuba and Helen. Cres. And whither go they? Alex. Up to the eastern tower, A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; Cres. ΤΟ Cres. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing, but every thing so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight. 31 Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking. Cres. Alex. Who comes here? Madam, your uncle Pandarus. 109 Cres. To say the truth, true and not true. Pan. She praised his complexion above Paris. Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough. Pan. So he has. Cres. Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good com plexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose. Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris. Cres. Then she's a merry Greek indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window, -and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin, Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his bro ther Hector. Cres. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter? 129 Pan. But to prove to you that Helen loves him she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin Cres. Juno have mercy! how came it cloven? Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia. Cres. O, he smiles valiantly. Pan. Does he not? Pan. I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin: indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess,Cres. Without the rack. Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin. Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. Pan. But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er. Cres. With mill-stones. Pan. And Cassandra laughed. Cres. But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too? 16: Pan. Quoth she, Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.' Cres. This is her question. Pan. That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty hairs,' quoth he, and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons. Jupiter!' quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband?' The forked one,' quoth he, pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed. Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by. Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday: think on't. Cres. So I do. Pan. I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April. 189 Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A retreat sounded. Pan. Hark! they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here, and see them as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida. Cres. At your pleasure. Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest. Cres. Speak not so loud. ENEAS passes. 200 Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle? Pan. Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry Troilus'? Helenus is a priest. Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder? TROILUS passes. Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! 250 Pan. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece: look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. 260 Cres. Here come more. Forces pass. Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look: the eagles are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece. Cres. There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus. 269 Pan. Achilles! a drayman, a porter, a very camel. Cres. Well, well. Pan. Well, well!' Why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man? Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date's out. 281 Pan. You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie. Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly: |